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Post by PapaCharlie9 on Oct 19, 2016 19:34:46 GMT
The principle of the matter still stands... If the union is truly wanting to address voice-box over-stress, they aren't regulating the right end of the stick. They are really just making the more stressful work more attractive than the less stressful stuff because it becomes worth $double/hour. Maybe, instead of a stunt coodinator attending voice sessions, they need an onsite nurse qualified to determine if a VA's voice box is getting stressed and with the ability to call for a suitable break in the session to allow the VA's voice box to recover (of course, that a stunt coordinator would still be appropriate when mocap is being done). Excellent point. Or something even simpler -- keep the rate the same, but require minimum downtime (like 20 minutes off for every 10 minutes on) and have the downtime be unpaid. That makes it lose-lose for both sides: VAs don't want to earn less, industry doesn't want to pay for everyone else in the sound studio sitting around doing nothing, not to mention lengthening schedules.
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Post by PapaCharlie9 on Oct 19, 2016 19:59:54 GMT
BTW, for those who were trying to pit devs at Bioware against the VAs, it would be interesting to know if devs, level designers, artists, etc. on the team get any sort of profit sharing bonuses or equity in their packages. It's not inconceivable that basically everyone else has a finger in the pie except for VAs. Lol, when's the last time you met an exec or shareholder or generally anyone willing to take less money to keep costs down. And that's why there are unions and strikes. It's still surprising to me that programmers haven't unionized in some way, given the crap that happens. You wouldn't believe some of the shady stuff I've seen management pull.Except that that's going to happen anyway, with or without unions or strikes. Greed is sufficient motivation on it's own. In a perfect world, a successful strike wouldn't necessarily have the cost passed through to gamers, but I have to admit that historically, industry has used any excuse to jack up prices or squeeze more money out of gamers somehow. Doesn't matter what the event is, as long as it's common knowledge that they can't point shareholders to. US election in November? Better jack up prices, to preserve shareholder value. I agree, if no one else on the team is getting profit-sharing, VAs should not be first in line. That said, whether we like it or not, compensation doesn't really obey any rules of fairness. Market valuation isn't fair, or even objectively sane. Why should Floyd Mayweather make $72 million a year for boxing? What's fair or sane about that? A VA may very well make as much, if not 2x or 5x as much, as a dev spending 8k hours on the project. And, if you really want to rail against unfairness in compensation, look to the top. It may make you angry that a VA makes 3x what a 8k hour dev does, but what about the corporate VP making 20x what that 8k hour dev does? Perspective.
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Post by hivemind on Oct 19, 2016 21:06:46 GMT
As far as i know actors from sag-aftra participate in development of only 25% of all games. The most famous ones is Jennifer Hale and David Hayter. In their article the union ask their members to ask their fellow actors to join to the strike, regardless of their membership in the union, which for me indicate that there isn't that much actors who will be in that strike.
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Post by PapaCharlie9 on Oct 19, 2016 21:12:10 GMT
As far as i know actors from sag-aftra participate in development of only 25% of all games. The most famous ones is Jennifer Hale and David Hayter. In their article the union ask their members to ask their fellow actors to join to the strike, regardless of their membership in the union, which for me indicate that there isn't that much actors who will be in that strike. Interesting! If I understand you correctly -- that 75% of VO work done for games is by non-union VA, or at least, not SAG-AFTRA, could be a different union -- that adds a whole new dimension to this. Do you have a link you can share that has that data?
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Post by linksocarina on Oct 19, 2016 21:21:17 GMT
▄︻̷̿┻̿═━一 (_MEA_) 一━═̿┻̷̿︻▄ possibly, but unlikely. Although it really depends on when voice overs and ADR were recorded. I would think in most cases that has been done at this point, outside of some sessions for polishing. They might be ok...or they might get scrubs to fill in voice roles. Who knows in the end.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2016 21:23:46 GMT
Lol, when's the last time you met an exec or shareholder or generally anyone willing to take less money to keep costs down. Seems unlikely EA's solution is to spread the money around more "evenly". In reality the consequences will be more intrusive that a straight increase in game selling price, but more in-game microtransactions...and frankly I'd just rather pay the extra money up front to keep that shit out of the game. You raise an interesting point regarding game designers getting a slice of the pie. I'd really like to know myself. If the answer is no, then the VA's definitely need to shut up. If yes, then it's a reasonable request since their contributions are also important to the overall game's success. Percentage wise what it should be I have no idea. All I know if I were a coder, artist, or writer and spent the last 3 years and 6-8K hours of my life on a game I'd expect more than someone who came in for a week or two of voice acting. I worked nearly 40 years for a privately owned company where the owners did not take salaries but would share out the profits of the company. In those years, there were many years where the company made less money that it had the year before (due to various downturns in the economy over that time)... and not once did they reduce the salaries paid their employees... so, they did, in fact, take less money for themselves in some years. I always felt that my work was appreciated and never felt underpaid. As I said COO bonuses (payments above their salary must generally be approved by the Board of Directors... who won't approved bonuses for the executives if the company is actually losing money. The shareholders are a different ballgame altogether... if they hold preferred shares, the share will specify the company's obligation to pay them dividends. If they hold common shares, there are tax regulations involved here and the company cannot basically declare a dividend if the company is not profitable when the dividend is declared. On the employee end - More recently during this downturn of the Alberta oil industry... many companies have introduced job sharing programs in order to avoid totally laying off staff. Since the companies can no longer afford to keep both on at full salary, having two people holding one job at half-time puts at least a little money into the households of two families rather than having 1 making the same money they did before and the other being let go entirely.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2016 21:28:15 GMT
As far as i know actors from sag-aftra participate in development of only 25% of all games. The most famous ones is Jennifer Hale and David Hayter. In their article the union ask their members to ask their fellow actors to join to the strike, regardless of their membership in the union, which for me indicate that there isn't that much actors who will be in that strike. Interesting! If I understand you correctly -- that 75% of VO work done for games is by non-union VA, or at least, not SAG-AFTRA, could be a different union -- that adds a whole new dimension to this. Do you have a link you can share that has that data? My understanding that figure (25%) includes all games... many of which do not have any VOs in them.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2016 21:34:27 GMT
The principle of the matter still stands... If the union is truly wanting to address voice-box over-stress, they aren't regulating the right end of the stick. They are really just making the more stressful work more attractive than the less stressful stuff because it becomes worth $double/hour. Maybe, instead of a stunt coodinator attending voice sessions, they need an onsite nurse qualified to determine if a VA's voice box is getting stressed and with the ability to call for a suitable break in the session to allow the VA's voice box to recover (of course, that a stunt coordinator would still be appropriate when mocap is being done). Excellent point. Or something even simpler -- keep the rate the same, but require minimum downtime (like 20 minutes off for every 10 minutes on) and have the downtime be unpaid. That makes it lose-lose for both sides: VAs don't want to earn less, industry doesn't want to pay for everyone else in the sound studio sitting around doing nothing, not to mention lengthening schedules. They could perhaps instead schedule 2 VAs to a recording studio and alternate them... that way the VAs are resting and conserving the voice boxes but the techs aren't standing around doing nothing. I'm just saying 2-hours of "voice box hell" probably won't address the stress issue - paying people more does not preserve their voices.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2016 21:40:39 GMT
Some people here seem very unhappy with their own wages... Voice actors don't just cruise to a four hour job, cash in easy money and spend the rest of the week in a hammock drinking martinis while normal people work their butts off, you know. Their pay needs to cover the countless hours spent job hunting, preparing for an audition, practicing lines, maintaining their skill level and so on. Most of them probably can't live off voice acting alone for that reason, just like most other artists. With people who become really famous, it's different, of course. But even they do work. I believe many (famous) actors work up to 16 hours a day for weeks and months. They make a fortune, so they are very well compensated, I wouldn't want their lives though. In a perfect world we'd all work the same hours and make the same amount of money. A garbage man is as important as a surgeon. Nobody needs millions of dollars. Nobody. But demand and availability determine price. And usually the least important things in life are in highest demand. However, what they're demanding here isn't paying voice actors a fortune. They just want to make a decent living. What's wrong with that? The entertainment/creative industry has little job security and everyone works under a lot of pressure. I'm all for humanizing the process. I work in the video game industry as a tiny replaceable wheel in the machine. My wage is fairly low but I work way less than the creative team. Hardly any overtime. I go home at five and forget about the job. So in a sense my pay is adequate. A show or game I like might get delayed a bit by a demand for better pay? Boo-hoo! How awful... (Sorry for sounding aggressive, I'm not in the best mood. A good friend's wife has cancer.)Wish UpUpAway actually understood your post. Guy sure sounded ignorant, and my post is coming from someone who wanted to work in the entertainment industry.
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Post by FireAndBlood on Oct 19, 2016 22:06:14 GMT
I never bought a game because of a VA and I never will.
They deserve to have better working environments, but at the end of the day they are not the main reason a game is successful unlike a TV show or film. Nolan North was phenomenal as Nathan Drake but if Uncharted had shitty game play no one would have noticed.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 19, 2016 22:11:07 GMT
Some people here seem very unhappy with their own wages... Voice actors don't just cruise to a four hour job, cash in easy money and spend the rest of the week in a hammock drinking martinis while normal people work their butts off, you know. Their pay needs to cover the countless hours spent job hunting, preparing for an audition, practicing lines, maintaining their skill level and so on. Most of them probably can't live off voice acting alone for that reason, just like most other artists. With people who become really famous, it's different, of course. But even they do work. I believe many (famous) actors work up to 16 hours a day for weeks and months. They make a fortune, so they are very well compensated, I wouldn't want their lives though. In a perfect world we'd all work the same hours and make the same amount of money. A garbage man is as important as a surgeon. Nobody needs millions of dollars. Nobody. But demand and availability determine price. And usually the least important things in life are in highest demand. However, what they're demanding here isn't paying voice actors a fortune. They just want to make a decent living. What's wrong with that? The entertainment/creative industry has little job security and everyone works under a lot of pressure. I'm all for humanizing the process. I work in the video game industry as a tiny replaceable wheel in the machine. My wage is fairly low but I work way less than the creative team. Hardly any overtime. I go home at five and forget about the job. So in a sense my pay is adequate. A show or game I like might get delayed a bit by a demand for better pay? Boo-hoo! How awful... (Sorry for sounding aggressive, I'm not in the best mood. A good friend's wife has cancer.)Wish UpUpAway actually understood your post. Guy sure sounded ignorant, and my post is coming from someone who wanted to work in the entertainment industry. Any freelancer in any industry spends a lot of time drumming up business... hours that they are not paid for. Many professional freelancers have to spend hours and hours in courses maintaining their various licenses and certifications... So stop acting like VAs are the only trained professional freelancers in the world that have to put some time into their craft outside "paid hours." I wish you took the time to really understand my post. Also, if you read my first post in this thread, you would know that I said I would prefer they delay the game if a strike does occur and if there is still voice work that needs to be done rather than doing a "patch job" with whatever voice work has already been done just to get the game out the door on time... so your "how awful" comment does not apply to me since I'm not whining about that at all.
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Post by fade9wayz on Oct 19, 2016 23:56:27 GMT
Some people here seem very unhappy with their own wages... Voice actors don't just cruise to a four hour job, cash in easy money and spend the rest of the week in a hammock drinking martinis while normal people work their butts off, you know. Their pay needs to cover the countless hours spent job hunting, preparing for an audition, practicing lines, maintaining their skill level and so on. Most of them probably can't live off voice acting alone for that reason, just like most other artists. With people who become really famous, it's different, of course. But even they do work. I believe many (famous) actors work up to 16 hours a day for weeks and months. They make a fortune, so they are very well compensated, I wouldn't want their lives though. In a perfect world we'd all work the same hours and make the same amount of money. A garbage man is as important as a surgeon. Nobody needs millions of dollars. Nobody. But demand and availability determine price. And usually the least important things in life are in highest demand. However, what they're demanding here isn't paying voice actors a fortune. They just want to make a decent living. What's wrong with that? The entertainment/creative industry has little job security and everyone works under a lot of pressure. I'm all for humanizing the process. I work in the video game industry as a tiny replaceable wheel in the machine. My wage is fairly low but I work way less than the creative team. Hardly any overtime. I go home at five and forget about the job. So in a sense my pay is adequate. A show or game I like might get delayed a bit by a demand for better pay? Boo-hoo! How awful... (Sorry for sounding aggressive, I'm not in the best mood. A good friend's wife has cancer.)Nobody said VAs are lazy butts, and yes their pay need to cover everything you mentionned, just like any other free-lancer, by the way. Asking for better wages is reasonnable and justified, asking for automatic bonuses once a set amount of copies are sold is not. Just like, on the other hand, game companies demanding VAs who aren't attentive while recording be fined is completely unreasonable. People can't always help being late or be distracted because a member of their family has had a accident or something. That's ridiculous. I doubt productors get fined when they're stuck in traffic, so why should VAs? I'm a lead animator in a movie company, and I too am fairly replaceable. Everyone is, in the end, and while I certainly wouldn't say no to better wages and job security, it is adequate too, considering the circumstances I work in (small company, artistic projects generally mean tight budgets...) . I could do without crunch time as well. I can theorically do free-lance work on the side in advertisement for exemple though, just like a free-lancer can cumulate mandates for a better income. Yes, there are free-lancers, especially among artists, who struggle to make a living. I have many illustrator friends who are in this case. Others do very well for themselves, and even have to refuse requests. That's how it is when you are a free-lancer, fees should cover your various expenses, including healthcare, and ensure you have enough savings for when you're jobless, but they are also dependant on the market and how good someone is at negotiating them. VAs and performers aren't a special exception in this, just like they aren't an exception when it comes to work-related injuries. Animators and illustrators often suffer from wrist tendonitis and arthritis, violonists often permanently lose accoustic acuity in the ear close to the violin... I'm not saying there shouldn't be contractual measures to prevent them, but these measures should be adequate to do exactly that, not only make the kind of work that causes this injuries financially more interesting. In the movie industry, we have fairly powerful unions and syndicates. In the USA, they are even almost ridiculously so: directors have their own, scriptwriters, directors of photography, actors, make-up artists, drivers,background builders, sound-designers, etc . Non-members can't work on any big productions, and these unions have the power of completely blocking a movie from being completed if their demands are not met, which has resulted in rather absurd situations where every background painters have to be provided a chauffeur... So far, the only ones who have managed to wrangle copyrights from the productors are scriptwriters, directors and music composers, aka those who have an author status. Actors, who are ine the position of interpreter, too, but I'm pretty sure it must be on the ground of right of use of their image (and it's one of the most powerful unions in Hollywood, so...). In Europe, authors have author rights on their work as well (it's not only monetary, author rights mean an author can dictate how their work is published. A composer has every right to impose their music isn't used outside of an area, for exemple, which in practice, can prevent the movie using their score from being aired in festivals or theaters outside this area. It's actually happened with one of our movies, although I had just started and hadn't worked on this particular movie). All the other artists and technicians are considered as normal workers and don't get copyrights or author rights. If they get bonuses, it's when the movie has brought in enough profit and the productor's decided bonuses should be given, like in any other company. The thing is, the video game industry is still fairly young, as are game developpers, and many are passionate enough to agree to lower conditions, which impedes the creation of unions. Animators in the game industry are generally paid less than their counterparts in the movie industry (in companies of similar size and budget, and at similar experience level). People working in the game industry should definitely make their own unions. Game scriptwriters and music composers are most likely in the same unions as movie scriptwriters and composers anyway, but all the others should make sure their interests are protected, especially since the job security, work conditions, and wages sometimes aren't all that great. That is not something that only VAs endure. Speaking of which, why in the nine circles of hell do some of them do stunts? It isn't at all necessary! The only cases where it makes any sort of sense is in a game like 'The last of us' where there's a heavy emphasis on story-telling and character acting, and the character is closely modelled after the actor giving their voice (any good face mocap must be applied on a character that looks like the actor, otherwise it will look seriously jarring and hit the uncanny valley, so that leaves out customizable protagonists like Shepard). Otherwise, a good actor recorded in a studio and a good sound designer is all you really need! There's a reason for the 'Geralt as a Witcher doesn't express feelings' bullshit, or why you don't see the Master chief's face, you know? They didn't do face mocap and animated acting was reduced to the minimum necessary (as is often the case in video games). Anyway, all of that to say yes to better wages and working conditions, for everyone involved, but no to unreasonable demands that will incite production companies to only hire non-union artists only or move their activity where local unions and syndicates are less powerful or demanding. Hello actors from other english-speaking countries, Polish orchestras and Indian animators! By the way, I highly doubt MEA main game will be affected by this strike. At this point they must have everything recorded already. SP Dlcs with story content might, on the other hand.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2016 0:06:40 GMT
Speaking of which, why in the nine circles of hell do some of them do stunts? It isn't at all necessary! The only cases where it makes any sort of sense is in a game like 'The last of us' where there's a heavy emphasis on story-telling and character acting, and the character is closely modelled after the actor giving their voice (any good face mocap must be applied on a character that looks like the actor, otherwise it will look seriously jarring and hit the uncanny valley, so that leaves out customizable protagonists like Shepard). Uh, for the sake of performance continuity? Voice acting in itself is challenging if you have little to no context of what your character is doing, and not every actor in every video game project has the same luxury of watching an animated scene to know what is physically going on in the scene they are recording. Doing double-duty with the performance capture actually helps sell the acting instead of two disembodied actors (one physical actor and one voice actor) being the same character. Some actors may want to do stunt fighting of their own volition as something fun to do in the same way we liked to play pretend cops and robbers as kids. Not every actor is going to be Jackie Chan in the stunt department, sure, but who wouldn't want to try it out?
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Post by PapaCharlie9 on Oct 20, 2016 0:46:26 GMT
In the movie industry, we have fairly powerful unions and syndicates. In the USA, they are even almost ridiculously so: directors have their own, scriptwriters, directors of photography, actors, make-up artists, drivers,background builders, sound-designers, etc . Non-members can't work on any big productions, and these unions have the power of completely blocking a movie from being completed if their demands are not met, which has resulted in rather absurd situations where every background painters have to be provided a chauffeur... So far, the only ones who have managed to wrangle copyrights from the productors are scriptwriters, directors and music composers, aka those who have an author status. Actors, who are ine the position of interpreter, too, but I'm pretty sure it must be on the ground of right of use of their image (and it's one of the most powerful unions in Hollywood, so...). In Europe, authors have author rights on their work as well (it's not only monetary, author rights mean an author can dictate how their work is published. A composer has every right to impose their music isn't used outside of an area, for exemple, which in practice, can prevent the movie using their score from being aired in festivals or theaters outside this area. It's actually happened with one of our movies, although I had just started and hadn't worked on this particular movie). All the other artists and technicians are considered as normal workers and don't get copyrights or author rights. If they get bonuses, it's when the movie has brought in enough profit and the productor's decided bonuses should be given, like in any other company. Thanks for the detailed post -- I was hoping folks who actually work in the entertainment industry would give their perspective. I know this isn't your first post in this thread, but I didn't have the context. Compared to just about every other entertainment medium, you're right, gaming is the youngster. But the time has long past for the AAA industry to catch up with everyone else. If a Martian visited a mocap set, or a CGI greenscreen set, or a sound studio, or even an animator's bullpen, I think they'd have a hard time telling whether they were looking at a movie being made or a AAA game. So why are there different standards for what effectively is the same work? I also wonder how much of this strike is really about long standing issues between VA for animated feature films and live-action actors, assuming there are any such issues. Is the AAA industry the only outlier, or just the first battlefront in a larger war? To be sure, the software part of AAA games is the differentiator (although shit loads of custom single-use software is written for movies like Avatar) and the engineering team needs to continue to follow the industry standards for software, at least to some extent. But the coders are also movie-makers, story-tellers, musicians, etc., so some overlap ought to happen too. They're all in it together.
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Post by PapaCharlie9 on Oct 20, 2016 1:03:00 GMT
I never bought a game because of a VA and I never will. They deserve to have better working environments, but at the end of the day they are not the main reason a game is successful unlike a TV show or film. Nolan North was phenomenal as Nathan Drake but if Uncharted had shitty game play no one would have noticed. I understand most gamers won't buy a game because Martin Sheen voiced some character, so what, right? But I'm pretty confident that if Bioware had swapped in some mediocre substitute to voice Morrigan for DAI, instead of Claudia Black, there would have been blood in the streets and lots of DA faithful demanding refunds or not buying the game in protest.e Gameplay has to be first, no question, but is it sufficient for AAA games to be successful? I don't think so. It's the whole package: code, VA, music, writing, mocap, etc., etc.
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Post by PapaCharlie9 on Oct 20, 2016 1:16:58 GMT
I worked nearly 40 years for a privately owned company where the owners did not take salaries but would share out the profits of the company. In those years, there were many years where the company made less money that it had the year before (due to various downturns in the economy over that time)... and not once did they reduce the salaries paid their employees... so, they did, in fact, take less money for themselves in some years. I always felt that my work was appreciated and never felt underpaid. As I said COO bonuses (payments above their salary must generally be approved by the Board of Directors... who won't approved bonuses for the executives if the company is actually losing money. The shareholders are a different ballgame altogether... if they hold preferred shares, the share will specify the company's obligation to pay them dividends. If they hold common shares, there are tax regulations involved here and the company cannot basically declare a dividend if the company is not profitable when the dividend is declared. I wish I worked where you work. Sounds ethical and decent, rare commodities in any industry.
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Post by Kappa Neko on Oct 20, 2016 13:17:18 GMT
Any freelancer in any industry spends a lot of time drumming up business... hours that they are not paid for. Many professional freelancers have to spend hours and hours in courses maintaining their various licenses and certifications... So stop acting like VAs are the only trained professional freelancers in the world that have to put some time into their craft outside "paid hours." That is correct. However, I don't quite understand how this is an argument against asking for better pay/working conditions. Every profession is trying to improve their situation. Doesn't mean others don't struggle or that their problems mean less. They in turn have the right to voice their dissatisfaction and make their own demands. I don't see the problem. Exactly. VA are simply trying to do that right now. And as others have pointed out, it's part of the negotiation dance to make big demands. Like ridiculous job descriptions. You meet somewhere in the middle. Yes, I would agree that asking for a cut of the profit at a set amount of copies sold makes little sense since it says little about the actual profit made from said sales. And indeed it would most likely only push companies to hire non-union voice actors in the future to avoid this. I wasn't addressing that. I was simply surprised and irritated by some of the posts making it sound like they are not entitled to ask for better pay because other jobs have worse working conditions.
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...lives for biotic explosions. And cheesecake!
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Oct 18, 2016 21:17:18 GMT
October 2016
kappaneko
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by Kappa Neko on Oct 20, 2016 13:33:20 GMT
I worked nearly 40 years for a privately owned company where the owners did not take salaries but would share out the profits of the company. In those years, there were many years where the company made less money that it had the year before (due to various downturns in the economy over that time)... and not once did they reduce the salaries paid their employees... so, they did, in fact, take less money for themselves in some years. I always felt that my work was appreciated and never felt underpaid. As I said COO bonuses (payments above their salary must generally be approved by the Board of Directors... who won't approved bonuses for the executives if the company is actually losing money. The shareholders are a different ballgame altogether... if they hold preferred shares, the share will specify the company's obligation to pay them dividends. If they hold common shares, there are tax regulations involved here and the company cannot basically declare a dividend if the company is not profitable when the dividend is declared. I wish I worked where you work. Sounds ethical and decent, rare commodities in any industry. Indeed. Sounds like the story a friend told me a couple of weeks ago of a company he worked for. Shared profits. If a year was bad, management would cut their pay rather than that of the general workforce. Happy workers are productive workers. That was twenty years ago, I believe. These days are long gone it seems... people seem to have forgotten about basic work psychology. Or they don't deem the benefits of a productive work environment important anymore. Now it's all about pleasing the stockholders at the expense of the workers. I could tell stories... Quality of the product goes down the drain, workers are all unhappy and stop caring/quit. I guess it's an inevitable process. Everything that gets too big/successful will eventually implode. Profit will stagnate and then a company starts "restructuring", outsourcing and bleeding the lower end workforce dry while management keeps promoting itself. I'm currently witness to this. Kind of fascinating. Like a car accident...
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∯ Alien Wizard
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Sept 14, 2023 6:08:41 GMT
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Ieldra
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August 2016
ieldra
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Baldur's Gate, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by Ieldra on Oct 20, 2016 13:38:55 GMT
I have a lot of respect for VA and I'm all for improving working conditions for the VAs to help maintain their voices. My sticking point with the union though is the fact they want VAs to have a share of the game's profits, which is... ridiculous IMO. I respect the work, but the fact remains they put in a handful of hours on a game while Devs put in years of their time, crunching their way through late nights and weekends. I'm not dismissing the value of good VAs, but that's just bonkers. I don't think a bonus if a game does exceptionally well would be inappropriate, but if they want a regular share of the profit without having invested in it, they must also be willing to underwrite a part of the costs if the game bombs.
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Hrungr
Twitter Guru
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More coffee...? More coffee.
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Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem
Origin: Hrungr
Prime Posts: 18,258
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Posts: 29,553 Likes: 104,378
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104,378
Hrungr
More coffee...? More coffee.
29,553
August 2016
hrungr
Hrungr
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Baldur's Gate, Neverwinter Nights, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda, Anthem
Hrungr
18,258
65,767
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Post by Hrungr on Oct 20, 2016 14:39:57 GMT
I have a lot of respect for VA and I'm all for improving working conditions for the VAs to help maintain their voices. My sticking point with the union though is the fact they want VAs to have a share of the game's profits, which is... ridiculous IMO. I respect the work, but the fact remains they put in a handful of hours on a game while Devs put in years of their time, crunching their way through late nights and weekends. I'm not dismissing the value of good VAs, but that's just bonkers. I don't think a bonus if a game does exceptionally well would be inappropriate, but if they want a regular share of the profit without having invested in it, they must also be willing to underwrite a part of the costs if the game bombs. Heh, I'd love to see the union's reaction to that... As I was saying earlier, if there was a studio-wide bonus given out to their employees for sales, etc., then I feel the VAs should certainly have their slice of that. My main sticking point is that the union is trying to dictate some kind of standardized (and potentially several times their normal pay) bonus for VAs based on their own metrics. Again, I respect the work VAs do, but that's just... no.
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Monk
N4
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
Origin: MonkMcMueller
PSN: Monk_McMueller
Prime Posts: 600, something, something
Posts: 1,074 Likes: 1,370
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1,370
Monk
1,074
August 2016
monkmcmueller
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
MonkMcMueller
Monk_McMueller
600, something, something
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Post by Monk on Oct 20, 2016 15:03:46 GMT
Like you, I also hope that a deal is reached before Friday. I am not anti-VA... but the bottom line here is that both sides have a lot of concessions yet to make in order for that to happen. Right now, as I see it, both sides have unreasonable demands of each other on the table. I've been pointing out the VA ones because most everyone else here has been taking an anti-developer stance. Both sides are guilty of trying to make their unreasonableness seem reasonable to us and they want all of us to sympathize with their side. We're being played by "hidden" stuff in each side's proposals that really makes it impossible for them to settle. They are forcing this strike to happen... So personally I think a strike is pretty much inevitable... and, unfortunately, gamers/consumers are going to hurt because of it. The entire industry will suffer a set back that, like TV, they may not recover from for years. On one side of it, i see it as any other bit of haggling, you start high and work your way down. On the other, while some requests made by the guild might seem problematic, artists in general work while they're popular so are never guaranteed a paycheck every month, regardless of how hard they work. Also, there's a cost of living which raises every year. Between this and the ever growing gap between the truly rich and everyone else, the strike is a necessary situation. I'd take pity on the publishers if they weren't rolling in with more money every year but that's not feesible because they're not suffering.
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May 17, 2024 23:59:22 GMT
2,864
Sartoz
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August 2016
sartoz
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse1.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.hVm-5wNStlyTEXjhwDoa_wHaEK%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=8f745a5f30b08f8231ddb64664df7375d23cc10878aa50d66fec54e9d570c7e2&ipo=images
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
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Post by Sartoz on Oct 20, 2016 15:18:34 GMT
,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸-(_MEA_)-,.-~*´¨¯¨`*·~-.¸ Of interest. Major celebrities that have lent their voices to games include:
Kiefer Southerland, Neil Patrick Harris, Mila Kunis, Ellen Page, Christopher Walken, Snoop Dog, Liam Neeson, John Goodman, Elihah Wood, Samuel L. Jackson, Ray Liotta, Heather Graham, Susan Sarandon, 50 Cent, Gary Oldman, Mark Hamill, George Takei, Kristen Bell, Ben Kingsley, Mickey Rourke, Patrick Stewart, Seth Green, Haley Joel Osment, and SAG-AFTRA board member Martin Sheen. The link below identifies the employers affected by the strike of which EA is one of them. The article from SAG-AFTRA is dated Oct 16. www.sagaftra.org/sag-aftra-national-board-sets-interactive-strike-date-extends-national-executive-director-contract-0
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
Deleted
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guest@proboards.com
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January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2016 15:29:01 GMT
Any freelancer in any industry spends a lot of time drumming up business... hours that they are not paid for. Many professional freelancers have to spend hours and hours in courses maintaining their various licenses and certifications... So stop acting like VAs are the only trained professional freelancers in the world that have to put some time into their craft outside "paid hours." That is correct. However, I don't quite understand how this is an argument against asking for better pay/working conditions. Every profession is trying to improve their situation. Doesn't mean others don't struggle or that their problems mean less. They in turn have the right to voice their dissatisfaction and make their own demands. I don't see the problem. That is because I am NOT arguing against better pay and working conditions. I have been arguing against a performance bonus program that professes to be sharing in profits but that kicks in BEFORE there are actually profits to share (i.e. at a point when the game just starts making a profit... i.e. just after it breaks even). Also, I'm NOT arguing against better working conditions nor am I arguing against making the developers take steps to look after a VA's voice box... I'm saying that doubling the pay for doing voice box stressful work does not address the issue... it just makes that stressful work more attractive to the VA because that sort of work would pay double per hour than doing voice work at a normal voice level (which is the sort of work that is not stressful on their voice box). I am really tired of being painted the bad guy here by people who keep putting words into my mouth.
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Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
Deleted
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guest@proboards.com
1122
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January 1970
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Post by Deleted on Oct 20, 2016 15:41:12 GMT
Like you, I also hope that a deal is reached before Friday. I am not anti-VA... but the bottom line here is that both sides have a lot of concessions yet to make in order for that to happen. Right now, as I see it, both sides have unreasonable demands of each other on the table. I've been pointing out the VA ones because most everyone else here has been taking an anti-developer stance. Both sides are guilty of trying to make their unreasonableness seem reasonable to us and they want all of us to sympathize with their side. We're being played by "hidden" stuff in each side's proposals that really makes it impossible for them to settle. They are forcing this strike to happen... So personally I think a strike is pretty much inevitable... and, unfortunately, gamers/consumers are going to hurt because of it. The entire industry will suffer a set back that, like TV, they may not recover from for years. On one side of it, i see it as any other bit of haggling, you start high and work your way down. On the other, while some requests made by the guild might seem problematic, artists in general work while they're popular so are never guaranteed a paycheck every month, regardless of how hard they work. Also, there's a cost of living which raises every year. Between this and the ever growing gap between the truly rich and everyone else, the strike is a necessary situation. I'd take pity on the publishers if they weren't rolling in with more money every year but that's not feesible because they're not suffering.Keep in mind that not every publisher is rolling in money either... there are plenty of smaller independent publishers that risk a lot of up front investment (cold, hard and usually borrowed cash) to bring their first game to market... only to see it flop. Any publisher who hires a union VA would be afffected by this contract... large or small; after their first marginally successful game or after many. It would really "hurt" the ones just starting out more. Also, not every VA works under the same scale and conditions. There are many very famous actors who do voice work and I'm sure they aren't starving... I'm sure those people don't work for the minimum scale of $100/hour either. I'm sure their notoriety enables them to also negotiate perks into their own contracts... like shorter sessions and more breaks. I'm sure Wil Wheaton also has a lot of income coming in from just residuals for Star Trek. So, should I "take pity" on him? en.mediamass.net/people/wil-wheaton/highest-paid.html
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Monk
N4
Games: Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
Origin: MonkMcMueller
PSN: Monk_McMueller
Prime Posts: 600, something, something
Posts: 1,074 Likes: 1,370
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347
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1,370
Monk
1,074
August 2016
monkmcmueller
Mass Effect Trilogy, Dragon Age: Origins, Dragon Age 2, Dragon Age Inquisition, KOTOR, Jade Empire, Mass Effect Andromeda
MonkMcMueller
Monk_McMueller
600, something, something
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Post by Monk on Oct 20, 2016 18:06:37 GMT
If smaller publishers can afford their very own Wheaton prime-time, it's unlikely they'd go out of their way to make Wheaton uncomfortable or put him in poor working conditions and would, most likely, go ahead with suggestions Wheaton made. Also, unless Wheaton was feeling especially diva when dealing with said publisher, he'd likely give them some slack on fees or possibly provide some extras, somehow, as a token of generosity. Maybe it's just me but he doesn't normally come off as a dick.
On the other hand, larger companies, unless dealing with someone popular like Wheaton, have no qualms getting every ounce of energy out of people, hence why unions were created in the first place. Because, if companies were so benevolent, there would be no reason for unions to exist in the first place.
Regards to Wheaton, the man's obviously done very well for himself but, let's be honest, can he really live off of his residuals alone? I'm placing bets he can't. He lives in L.A. for fucks sake. The cost for an apartment in Skid Row is approximately $1700. Could you imagine how much it'd cost to live near West Hollywood or Beverly Hills? The only way you could live cheaper is if you bounced around motels for $20-50 a day, and that's no guarantee.
Okay, so let's say he made $100 an hour. Most recording sessions are for, what, two weeks? Maybe a month? Assuming normal work hours, which is probably inaccurate due to the need for various breaks, that's $800 a day, which is $16,000 for all the sessions. That's it, without taxes. With taxes, which are higher as a contractor if i recall right, he might get $12,000. Besides the house and other needs, he's gotta find another job before the $12,000 runs out. He's got two kids so there's college he's gotta save for. There's also medical expenses, which he does have since he suffers from depression, if i remember right. Do you know, without coverage, a bottle of pills is like over a thousand dollars? That $12,000, which has gets no benefit from being in a corporation that gets group rates, gets smaller and smaller as the months pass. And games are taking longer to produce. Years longer in fact and the amount of VO any common game's going to have will be fairly minimal when compared to a BioWare game. And to think i'm probably over-blowing the amount of money they'd receive, because honestly, on most games, i doubt they're working for more than a week.
Note, if you have more accurate information on their actual work hours, that'd be grand because i know it's short but not how short and would make better sense of why they're asking for so much.
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